What does vaskania mean?
Vaskania means the evil eye. It is the folk belief that a person can harm someone else just by looking at them, usually without meaning to, because they envied or admired them too much. According to tradition, the victim gets a headache, feels heavy and tired and keeps yawning.
The word sounds more formal than “mati”. You mostly find it in church, in the “Prayer against vaskania”, and in writing about folklore. In everyday Greek people say “they gave me the eye”, not “I suffered vaskania”.
Where does the word vaskania come from?
Vaskania comes from the ancient Greek verb baskaino and the adjective baskanos. The verb meant “to give the evil eye” or “to bewitch with a look”, and a baskanos was an envious person, one who gives the eye. The verb still exists in modern Greek with the same meaning, though you rarely hear it.
Plutarch, Heliodorus and other ancient writers wrote about vaskania and tried to explain it. Plutarch gives a whole chapter of his Table Talk to the question of why some people are said to give the evil eye. The Romans knew it too: Virgil writes about a shepherd complaining that “some eye” has bewitched his lambs.
Mati, evil eye, matiasma: are they the same as vaskania?
Yes. They are different Greek names for the same thing:
| Word | How it is used |
|---|---|
| Vaskania (βασκανία) | The ancient, formal word, used in church and folklore |
| Mati (μάτι) | The everyday word, literally “eye” |
| Kako mati (κακό μάτι) | “Evil eye”, the same with the harm spelled out |
| Matiasma (μάτιασμα) | The act: what was done to you |
| Matiazo, matiasmenos | The verb and the state: “they gave me the eye”, “I’m jinxed” |
| Xematiasma (ξεμάτιασμα) | The cure: the ritual that removes the eye |
Who gives the evil eye, and who catches it?
According to tradition, the evil eye comes from anyone who envies or admires something too much, and most of the time they don’t even notice. Some people are said to have a “heavy eye”, and blue eyes supposedly give it more easily, which is said to be why the bead is blue.
Babies, children, beautiful people, newlyweds and anyone with something new to show off catch it most easily: a house, a car, a job. Animals can catch it too, like Virgil’s lambs. If you are not sure whether it happened to you, take the “Do I have the evil eye?” quiz.
How do Greeks protect themselves from vaskania?
- With the blue eye bead on a bracelet, a necklace, a pram or above the front door.
- With “ftou ftou”, a mock spit after a compliment, or by saying “I don’t want to jinx you”.
- With garlic in a pocket or hanging in the house.
- With an amulet or a small cross from church.
How does vaskania go away?
With a xematiasma. The healer drops three drops of olive oil into a plate of water, whispers a prayer with the person’s name and watches the oil. If it spreads, there is an evil eye, and the prayer is repeated until the drops stay round. All the steps are in our guide What is xematiasma.
The Orthodox Church has its own prayer against vaskania, read only by a priest. For both the folk and the church prayer, see the evil eye prayer.
At Ftou Ftou, Kyra Ourania does an online xematiasma with your name, free and for fun. It is not treatment, and if you have felt unwell for days, see a doctor.
Lift my evil eye, on the house